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Grant Green: Rediscovering the Forgotten Genius of Jazz Guitar
Now in softcover!
This heartfelt biography celebrates the life and music of unsung hero Grant Green, the late jazz guitar genius who played on nearly 100 albums from the early '60s to the late '70s, but narrowly missed celebrity. Today his music has inspired numerous acid-jazz and hip-hop recordings and his legend continues to grow. A straight-ahead jazzman turned funk wizard, Grant is best known for his rhythmic and driving tone as a session leader and sideman for Blue Note Records. The book paints a personal portrait of Grant's internal struggles through the eyes of his family, friends, and fellow musicians.
This heartfelt biography celebrates the life and music of unsung hero Grant Green, the late jazz guitar genius who played on nearly 100 albums from the early '60s to the late '70s, but narrowly missed celebrity. Today his music has inspired numerous acid-jazz and hip-hop recordings and his legend continues to grow. A straight-ahead jazzman turned funk wizard, Grant is best known for his rhythmic and driving tone as a session leader and sideman for Blue Note Records. The book paints a personal portrait of Grant's internal struggles through the eyes of his family, friends, and fellow musicians.
278 pages, Paperback
First published January 9, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 27, 2015
I enjoyed reading this book about Grant Green's life. The author conducted many interviews with Green's family and those who knew him to make the first biography of the underrated guitarist. The story of his life was very interesting but in my opinion the author focused too much on Grant Green's early life and his final years playing funk music. I wanted to read more about the sessions that Green participated in with Elvin Jones, Lou Donaldson, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Sonny Clark, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Big John Patton and many others. Those recording dates were not given the detail they rightly deserved in this book and it makes it less appealing to musician readers. However, this lack of detail is resolved somewhat in the appendix which contains reviews of Grant Green albums by another author that Sharony Andrews Green contacted. His name is Tobias Jundt and his musical observations in his reviews are substantial. Finding all of the albums reviewed by Jundt and comparing them with his reviews was very insightful as a musician myself although the process took months. Jundt's reviews and write up about Grant Green's gear were the highlight of this book for me.
June 24, 2013
There are books you read for the pleasure of the words themselves, and there are books whose words you put up with in order to glean whatever useful information might be had despite them. Sharony Andrews Green's biography of her father-in-law (she is, or was, married to Green's youngest son, Grant, Jr.) falls, unfortunately, into the latter category.
On the positive side, this is the first biography of Grant Green. Despite his rising stature among guitarists--he was undervalued in his day--it's relatively difficult to learn much about Green the man. His music, thankfully, has mostly been reissued and is now readily available. But the man himself has remained overshadowed by more commercially successful jazz guitarists (e.g. notably Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and George Benson). Also in the positive column, Green (the author) has enviable access to the Green family and to many of Grant Green's former musical collaborators and rivals.
In the negative column, despite having been a journalist, Green seems entirely lacking when it comes to evaluating sources and knowing what to cut and what to keep in. She also isn't a musician, nor a music critic, so she quickly runs out of ways to describe the quality of her subject's remarkable playing. This is alleviated to a great extent by the last 20% of the book, which is turned over to Swiss musician Tobias Jundt, who has studied Green's playing and is quite adept at describing his playing in general and walking the reader through Green's discography, noting judiciously what to appreciate about each outing, which recordings are essential, and which are not worth the time.
[Some of what follows might be considered spoilers.]
Green structures the book around her discovering that her husband's father was a famous jazz guitarist--a fact that, oddly, hadn't come up previously--and her quest to learn about the man and his music. That's a technique upon which one ought to be able to hang a biography, but Green spent so much of his life aloof and estranged from his own family, that there's not a lot about the man himself to tell. What ought to be the ultimate insider's perspective ends up yielding fewer insights than one would have hoped. So the approach quickly becomes tiresome. And, especially at the beginning of the book, I found Green's attempts to insert herself and her husband into the narrative annoying and unproductive. Grant Green spent so much of his life on the road and battling his own heroin addiction that he, apparently, never formed much of a bond with his four children, except, perhaps, for the oldest Gregory Green (who is also a guitarist, and a fine one, who performs under the stage name "Grant Green, Jr.,").
I won't deny that I got some useful things out of this. It was nice to read George Benson's candid admiration of Green, who style was a tremendous influence on his own. (The lack of any commentary from Kenny Burrell is conspicuously lacking.) Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion's widow, Ruth Mason, provides some useful details about how Blue Note functioned in its heyday. And it was good to get a better understanding of the arc of Green's career, and his often frustrated attempts to court recognition outside of the jazz world. But the portrait we get of the man's life is limited. I learned about his drug addiction, his commitment to the Nation of Islam, his frustrations with the music industry, and his neglect of his family. What I didn't get, and hoped to, was a portrait of Green as an artist. There's scant mention of how he came to become the formidable player he was, no mention of his practice regimen or any other information about his dedication to his craft. I was treated to the same refrain about his religious dietary considerations, but never to the details of his life as a guitarist.
I'm a musician. I know you don't get to the level of playing that Grant Green achieved without working at it, without caring about it, without having ideas about what it is you're trying to do and how you hope it fits in with music in general. We get precious little of that here. The focus is almost entirely on the quotidian elements of Green's life. And those could have been summed up in a longish magazine piece.
On the positive side, this is the first biography of Grant Green. Despite his rising stature among guitarists--he was undervalued in his day--it's relatively difficult to learn much about Green the man. His music, thankfully, has mostly been reissued and is now readily available. But the man himself has remained overshadowed by more commercially successful jazz guitarists (e.g. notably Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, and George Benson). Also in the positive column, Green (the author) has enviable access to the Green family and to many of Grant Green's former musical collaborators and rivals.
In the negative column, despite having been a journalist, Green seems entirely lacking when it comes to evaluating sources and knowing what to cut and what to keep in. She also isn't a musician, nor a music critic, so she quickly runs out of ways to describe the quality of her subject's remarkable playing. This is alleviated to a great extent by the last 20% of the book, which is turned over to Swiss musician Tobias Jundt, who has studied Green's playing and is quite adept at describing his playing in general and walking the reader through Green's discography, noting judiciously what to appreciate about each outing, which recordings are essential, and which are not worth the time.
[Some of what follows might be considered spoilers.]
Green structures the book around her discovering that her husband's father was a famous jazz guitarist--a fact that, oddly, hadn't come up previously--and her quest to learn about the man and his music. That's a technique upon which one ought to be able to hang a biography, but Green spent so much of his life aloof and estranged from his own family, that there's not a lot about the man himself to tell. What ought to be the ultimate insider's perspective ends up yielding fewer insights than one would have hoped. So the approach quickly becomes tiresome. And, especially at the beginning of the book, I found Green's attempts to insert herself and her husband into the narrative annoying and unproductive. Grant Green spent so much of his life on the road and battling his own heroin addiction that he, apparently, never formed much of a bond with his four children, except, perhaps, for the oldest Gregory Green (who is also a guitarist, and a fine one, who performs under the stage name "Grant Green, Jr.,").
I won't deny that I got some useful things out of this. It was nice to read George Benson's candid admiration of Green, who style was a tremendous influence on his own. (The lack of any commentary from Kenny Burrell is conspicuously lacking.) Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion's widow, Ruth Mason, provides some useful details about how Blue Note functioned in its heyday. And it was good to get a better understanding of the arc of Green's career, and his often frustrated attempts to court recognition outside of the jazz world. But the portrait we get of the man's life is limited. I learned about his drug addiction, his commitment to the Nation of Islam, his frustrations with the music industry, and his neglect of his family. What I didn't get, and hoped to, was a portrait of Green as an artist. There's scant mention of how he came to become the formidable player he was, no mention of his practice regimen or any other information about his dedication to his craft. I was treated to the same refrain about his religious dietary considerations, but never to the details of his life as a guitarist.
I'm a musician. I know you don't get to the level of playing that Grant Green achieved without working at it, without caring about it, without having ideas about what it is you're trying to do and how you hope it fits in with music in general. We get precious little of that here. The focus is almost entirely on the quotidian elements of Green's life. And those could have been summed up in a longish magazine piece.
February 26, 2021
If you're expecting an academic biography filled with dates and trivia, you're going to be disappointed by this book. This is the story of one woman's journey to know her long-dead father-in-law, who seems to have been an elusive character even to those who knew him best. Not the final biographical word on the man by a long shot, but still a fascinating and compelling read.
July 28, 2024
Pretty easy to read but it also felt quite shallow. It explained his upbringing and where he was at different times of his life, but he still felt aloof to me by the end of the book. You get a little sense of who he was from his peers, but many accounts seem to also be shallow, overly complimentary and repetitive. I thought some of this may be due to the author being Grant’s daughter-in-law at the time, and the musicians may have been protective of Grant’s sons. I also thought that maybe Grant’s life actually wasn’t all that exciting, though tidbits are mentioned (like Grant being a founder of one of the Nation of Islam temples) that suggest otherwise. I think that some of the anecdotes could have been edited down. Some of the quotes are a little dull - even the transcription of a radio interview with Green himself. The recollections of his later manager, Jay Glover, seem very unreliable. Some of the best moments come from Grant’s sons talking about him, and it’s Sharony Green’s access to the people close to Grant that would make this unique, even if another biography is eventually produced.
There are a couple of appendices written by a teenage Swiss guitar player, TJ, that are quite informative - using musical terminology to explain Grant’s technique and approach, and detailing the equipment he used. TJ also reviews a number of Grant Green recordings as leader and sideman and gives a good sense of what these sound like and what makes them interesting.
There’s not a lot of info around about Green - even his Wikipedia page is short - so I will take what I can get but I didn’t find this particularly moving.
My favourite recordings? Matador, Solid, and Lee Morgan’s Search For The New Land (all recorded in the first half of 1964).
There are a couple of appendices written by a teenage Swiss guitar player, TJ, that are quite informative - using musical terminology to explain Grant’s technique and approach, and detailing the equipment he used. TJ also reviews a number of Grant Green recordings as leader and sideman and gives a good sense of what these sound like and what makes them interesting.
There’s not a lot of info around about Green - even his Wikipedia page is short - so I will take what I can get but I didn’t find this particularly moving.
My favourite recordings? Matador, Solid, and Lee Morgan’s Search For The New Land (all recorded in the first half of 1964).
December 31, 2024
Written by his daughter in law, she takes a look at the life and legacy of Grant Green, one of the most influential guitarists ever. There are great stories from those who knew him well, and this is well written, but a look more into his music, and the recording sessions would have made this an even better book.
January 6, 2021
Given the scarceness of info on Grant Green, I’m very grateful for this book. Think there’s a ton of room for improvement on the next bio written about him but fantastic to have a book dedicated to my fav guitarist period.
August 3, 2015
I thought this book was excellent. Not without it's flaws, but certainly a must read for anyone interested in Grant Green. There is almost no information out there about Grant Green's life. This book is it. It doesn't delve much into Green's playing style, technique etc, but it really does a great job of revealing Grant Green as a person. It's also a great inside look at the jazz scene in general during the 60's and 70's.
February 6, 2016
some transcriptions or musical analysis would be cool.
March 18, 2012
Amazing player. A pretty deep cut only for serious jazz guitar lovers
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews